Noam Chomsky Quotes

The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand.

Israel's discourse with the United States on the subject of Iran's nuclear project is more significant, and more fraught, than it is with Europe. The U.S. has made efforts to stiffen sanctions against Iran and to mobilize countries like Russia and China to apply sanctions in exchange for substantial American concessions.

I believe if Mr. Obama is reelected, and Israel somehow is unable to interdict the Iranian nation from gaining nuclear weapons themselves, this administration unfortunately, I'm afraid, will allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon and then pursue what they believe would be the traditional policy of containment.

I want to reassert again the position of the United States that with regards to Iran, we will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period. We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen...The United States stands firmly with Israel, and we have a rock solid commitment to the security of Israel and to the security of its citizens.

Iran has been calling for it for years, and the Arab countries support it. Everyone except the United States and Israel support it. The U.S. won't allow it because it means inspecting Israel's nuclear weapons. The U.S. has continued to block it, and in fact blocked it again just a couple of days ago; it just wasn't widely reported. Iran's nuclear program, as U.S. intelligence points out, is deterrent, and the bottom line is that the U.S. and Israel don't want Iran to have a deterrent.

I think it is essential that America does not stumble into a stupid war with Iran.

To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle and lose the war.

I am worried because I'm hearing some of the same signals about Iran and its nuclear program that were heard as the Bush administration made its case for the war in Iraq. 'It's déjà vu all over again.

It was at a certain stage (you might have forgotten, haven't you?) that the United States actively collaborated with Saddam when he was at war with Iran: weapons were supplied, diplomatic and political support was provided and so on. Then the US fell out with him for some reason and decided to do away with him.

America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

The big issue is whether the United States will succeed in its venture of reshaping the Middle East. It is not clear to me that using military force is the way to do it. We should not have gone into Iraq. But we have.

Israeli government & the neocons want US to bomb Iran.

I think [Republicans] would really like to rip up that [Iran nuclear agreement] and get a new one, but that's going to be very difficult. You, of course, have Russia involved in that.

I think President Trump made his view of the Iran deal very clear before United Nations General Assembly, he considers it nothing short of an embarrassment. The simple truth is that transferring $1.7 billion in cash to the leading state sponsor of terrorism was a terrible idea. There is technical compliance and then there's the spirit of the agreement.

Let me be clear: America and the world are measurably less safe and less respected because of the Iran deal Hillary Clinton helped cut.

There's an interesting book by the former Brazilian ambassador Celso Amorim. In 2010, he initiated an effort along with Turkey to settle the whole Iran issue. Nobody outside of the United States takes it to be much of an issue. They made a deal with Iran for Iran to essentially give away its low enriched uranium to Turkey for storage, and in return, the Western powers. It was immediately scratched by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And the main reason was they didn't want anybody else to be involved in it. We were supposed to run things, but we didn't say that.

I think the US and UK thought if they gave a bit more time to Israel, they would crush Hezbollah. But it became very obvious that was an unwinnable war.

Iran should write us a letter of thank you for taking Mosul.

I'm worried about the world because there's chaos in the Middle East, and I think the Iranian deal [to lift sanctions] is going to continue the Shia-Sunni battles, the Persian-Arab battles.

Some of the same politicians and pundits that are so quick to reject the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program are the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.

I think if journalists were responsible for international policy we'd have a nuclear war every week.

We spent a fair amount of time on Ukraine. And I think there's a path that we discussed that we will follow up on in order to try to resolve some of the outstanding issues in order to fully implement Minsk.

I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

I don't believe that China, in my lifetime or maybe my children's lifetime, be equal to the United States militarily speaking, but they are very careful to avoid any engagement in war, they are basically a peaceful country, which gives them another advantage over the United States when we are much more inclined to go to war for various reasons.

Please don't suggest that I think we normalize relations with Tehran tomorrow. We don't. But I would like to see us move forward, and hopefully some day that will happen.